College & Research Libraries News (C&RL News) is the official newsmagazine and publication of record of the Association of College & Research Libraries, providing articles on the latest trends and practices affecting academic and research libraries.

About The Author

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.unc.edu

Fast Facts

Gary Pattillo

The condition of education

In school year 2013–14, an all-time high of 82 percent of public high school students graduated with a regular diploma within 4 years of first starting 9th grade. Sixty-eight percent of 2014 high school completers enrolled in college the following fall: 44 percent went to 4-year institutions and 25 percent went to 2-year institutions. About 57 percent of male students and 62 percent of female students who began their bachelor’s degree in the fall of 2008, and did not transfer, had completed their degree within six years. In 2013–14, over 1 million associate’s degrees, 1.9 million bachelor’s degrees, and over 750,000 master’s degrees were awarded.

“We’re going backward!”

“As we move toward the present, the media of our expression seems to have decreasing longevity… (I began) thinking again about the ephemeral nature of our artifacts and the possibility that the centuries well before ours will be better known than ours will be unless we are persistent about preserving digital content. The earlier media seem to have a kind of timeless longevity while modern media from the 1800s forward seem to have shrinking lifetimes.”

Publishing in India

“The Indian book market…is estimated to be the sixth largest in the world (valued at $3.9 billion, according to Nielsen), and the second largest in terms of English-language publishing (after the U.S.).”

Library link location

“The location of the library link on doctorate-granting institution websites correlates with research output. Doctoral granting institutions with higher research output put the hyperlink to their library on more prominent positions on the university website.”

Google vs. library resources

A four-year longitudinal study of a freshman cohort at a large public university found that, as students matured, they used library resources more frequently for their research. In their first semester, 69 percent of students said they started with Google while only 30 percent started with library resources. After four years, the percentage of participants starting their research with library resources rose to 45 percent. Librarian instruction and faculty source requirements both were associated with increased use of library resources.